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Scoop: Gossip Hated Grantland Before It Killed.

  1. KISS UP: More than 10 years after Will Vinton was fired from his own animation company by Phil Knight (that studio would go on to become Laika), the Academy Award-winning animator is back with a Broadway musical. Vinton and songwriter David Pomeranz last week launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $85,000 for their new musical, The Kiss, a battle-of-the-sexes riff on The Frog Prince. Vinton, the creator of the California Raisins and the talking M&Ms, calls The Kiss “half magic show,” with lots of elaborate costumes, outrageous characters and special effects. An initial showing—“a glorified workshop production,” according to Vinton—will be held March 24 and 25 at Lake Oswego’s Lakewood Center for the Arts, and he hopes to have it on Broadway by 2016.
  1. SECOND ACTS: The space that once housed 2nd Story restaurant will reopen as a new spot called Fenrir, with chef Ian Wilson, 2nd Story’s former sous chef. According to Fenrir’s sommelier, Tyler Hauptman, the spot will be primarily a small-plates bar but will “moonlight” as a fine-dining restaurant, with creatively sourced items that will include house-churned butter and salt made from seawater. >> Cheese & Crack food cart will open a brick-and-mortar snack shop next month inside the just-closed Black Bike Cafe location at 22 SE 28th Ave. Brendan O’Malley, who owns Stingray Cafe in the Leftbank building, divested himself of both the Black Cat Cafe on Northeast Alberta Street and the Black Bike within the span of two months. >> Sean Coyne, head baker at Grand Central Bakery, will run a pizza shop called Pizza Maria at 3060 SE Division St. >> The folks at mobile bottling outfit Green Bottling have applied for a license to start Royale Brewing, at 55 NE Farragut St. Big surprise, their Facebook page already shows labels printed for Fat Unicorn Pale Ale and the Royal Porter.
  1. WYNN WINS: After broad conjecture in the press—including in the pages of Willamette Week—about who owns Francis Bacon’s Three Studies of Lucian Freud, the $142.4 million painting on loan to the Portland Art Museum, the buyer was finally identified by The New York Times as Elaine Wynn, ex-wife of casino mogul Steve Wynn. Thus ends the only  period in which we can expect the Portland Art Museum to be regularly name-checked by Al Jazeera, France’s Le Figaro and England’s Daily Mail.
  1. CORRECTION: Last week’s cover story about working three months behind the counter at Voodoo Doughnut (“The Hole Story,” WW, Jan. 15, 2014) incorrectly identified a portrait of Isaac Hayes, Scientologist crooner and voice of South Park’s Chef, as Florida rapper Rick Ross. WW regrets the error. Writer Pete Cottell will be promptly issued copies of Hot Buttered Soul, Trilla and the complete The Rockford Files series. 

WWeek 2015

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